


Never a Smooth Sailing

by shirogiku



Series: A Tyranny of Teacups [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alfred Hamilton Bashing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Flashback, Gen, Heavy Bashing, Hennessey Regrets His Entire Life, Multi, Newgate, Post-1x06 AU, Post-VI. AU, Season/Series 01, The Royal Navy, Tiny But Horrible Cabin Boy James
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7431164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flint's capture by the Navy leads to an unexpected reunion (canon divergence after 1x06).</p><p>[<b>Updated 16-08-2016 with a missing scene</b>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man in Captain Kidd's Cell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamingPagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [DreamingPagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Instead of Billy falling off the ship after taking the Andromache, it's Flint. Extra bonus points if Flint getting captured by the British somehow leads to him meeting with Admiral Hennessy. Only one request - no sadfic please.
> 
>  **A/N:** Nervous as hell about this, but hey, some heavy fixing about to happen!

* * *

 

_1680*_

Captain Hennessey was a creature of habit. He liked things to be neat and trim and correct, his departures speedy and the rat neither seen nor smelt above deck, so to speak. But no sooner had the last of the convoy cleared Dover cliffs than he discovered that his lieutenants were a parcel of squabbling buffoons, he had just about enough powder and shot to scare away the seagulls at _best_ , and his midshipmen’s berth would be the death of him before any enemy sails crept into view.

The whole of Barbary would tremble, he thought sourly as he considered the troublemakers lined up in front of his desk. And the ghost of Barbarossa would shave off his beard in shame. Perhaps the solution to the Algerine problem was not so much to choke the Fleet with noblemen’s sons as to send them over to demoralise the enemy. The damage in the gun-room - as if a whirlwind had swept through it - was certainly a strong argument in favour of that idea.

Pratt, sixteen years on this God’s earth, was the kind of young gentleman that any calculating fighting captain would dread to have on his crew: with ‘the Honourable’ before his name and with a drawling, superior voice that he only just managed to rein in in the presence of his commanding officers.

Bacon, aged fourteen, was of a more modest squirearchy background and easily led, looking up to Pratt in all things, especially asinine behaviour.

“He bit me, sir,” Pratt repeated for the third time, waving the affected hand in the air. “He’s gone and _bit_ me!” Under Hennessey’s heavy scrutiny, he subsided into low muttering about rabid whelps.

The perpetrator of such a heinous act remained silent. “How many digits are you short of?” Hennessey inquired.

Pratt knitted his brow. “Beg your pardon, sir?”

The amount of bandaging that the injury called for was truly impressive.

The midshipman paused, his eyes darting around the cabin. Finally, he owned up to retaining the full complement _but_ at a serious risk of an infection, the surgeon had said (Pratt could not be bothered to memorise Dr. Farrier’s name).

“This is a serious matter indeed, if it really be so. And you, Mister Bacon? What of your battle wounds?” A black eye - from Pratt’s elbow, as it turned out - some scrapes and bruises, and a big tear in his slop trousers, which he had not had the chance to shift for something more appropriate. “You look positively savaged, my lad.”

Bacon made an uncomfortable noise in his throat. “Aye aye, sir.”

“Hmm.” He rearranged the papers on his desk unhurriedly. He had not been given command so long ago as to have forgotten what it was like being on the receiving end of the chain. However, _he_ had never been a bully. “Have you young gentlemen ever been taught the definition of a fair fight?”

“ _He_ started it,” Pratt mouthed. “Sir.”

“Is that right?” It merited Hennessey’s undivided attention. “A fair fight is a fight started by someone else?” He shook his head. “Mister Bacon?”

“A fair fight is a _proper_ fight,” Bacon squeaked. “By the _rules_.”

“And what, pray, are the rules of fighting among the crew in the gun-room?”

“No fighting,” was finally dredged up from the collective memory and duly repeated in unision.

Curiously enough, he had eyewitness accounts of the trio being equally enthusiastic about wreaking havoc in their wake. At no point did any of them feel obliged to stop and think.

Finally, the Boy.

“James?” Hennessey asked.

The Boy glared at the mids, who returned the sentiment in full. How a child’s face so angelic could turn so ferocious was a mystery which Hennessey had a strong premonition of never solving. The Boy’s implicit inclusion into the ranks of young gentlemen seemed to have gone unnoticed.

“I’d know,” James answered defiantly, “if I ever see one.”

In consideration of Pratt’s delicate constitution, he and Bacon were relegated to cleaning up after themselves - always a valuable lesson - and doing extra duties for the next fortnight. If sense could have been found in the arms of the gunner’s daughter, Hennessey would have been the first to officiate the said union, but alas, the process was rather less straightforward.

Once he and the Boy were alone, a silence beyond all admonitions descended upon them. Hennessey rose to his feet and moved to stand at the window, behind which the rain had drawn its curtain over the home shores. He had, of course, been wrong to bring the Boy along with him. His first, far less ambitious plan had also been far more reasonable. Sentimentality was a trap into which his betters had fallen, and always with disastrous results.

“Have you anything to say to me?” he asked at length.

“I’m sorry, sir.” The abject misery in the Boy’s voice cracked Hennesey’s armour with an alarming ease. “But-” He faltered. “They deserved it, sir! They really did, the whole lot of ‘em!”

He _should_ have seen this coming, but the hellish dilemma he had put himself in amazed him all the more for it. He had never played favourites, nor did he ever intend to, but the line between favour and fair was nigh invisible in the service.

He peered into the jug by the washbasin: empty, because James had been too busy picking fights with those twice his age and triple his size. Suppressing a sigh that would have been wholly unbecoming of him, Hennessey produced his handkerchief - no embroidery, he did not hold with that - and ordered James to spit.

Having wiped off the worst of the blood under the Boy’s nose, he turned the Boy’s head this way and that, making sure that he was otherwise unhurt.

“Sir?” James asked in a small voice. “Are you going to send me away, sir?” God damn it, wobbling like a poorly manned launch in a rough sea.

“I probably should.” As he studied James, his anger was jostled aside by a creeping fondness. “And you would just hop onto the next Navy ship that would have you, wouldn’t you?” Or worse, a merchantman.

James nodded.

“Then what the devil is the point?”

James flinched. “Your reputation, sir! You need a proper steward, not… me.”

The day had come - an untried whelp was lecturing _him_ about _his_ good standing. But the Boy paid attention, he had to grant him that. If a little too much attention to anything and everything _but_ his actual duties.

Hennessey folded his arms across his chest, telling James to keep the handkerchief. “What was it that provoked such mayhem, then?” If he had not been so put upon, he might have been genuinely impressed. “What did they say about me?”

James picked at the handkerchief, in a fruitless search of a loose thread.

“One last chance before I personally load you into a cannon and send you back to England with your tail on fire!” Hennessey snapped.

The lad gaped at him. “They said… _things_ ,” an inaudible whisper. “ _Terrible_ things.” Hennessey frowned. “‘bout why you _really_ kept me.”

“Good God.” It took a very special sort of rotten mind. “James, listen to me carefully.” He tilted up the lad’s chin. “I am not angry with you.” He had been raised to speak like a gentleman, but at times like this, he found himself slipping into the lilting accent that had not yet been banished from the household in his youth. “But this is the Navy. You shall never have a smooth sailing, and there will always be Pratts - the world is full of them.”

“Everyone’s got a pair, sir.”

He could forgive the lad anything for that alone. “Quite right.” He cleared his throat. “Alas, _some_ poor wretches don’t have anything over the bare minimum.”

James broke into a gap-toothed grin. “No wonder they can’t think of anything but bums!”

“What else is a walking bum to do?”

They exchanged looks and couldn’t help laughing. “So you see, my boy,” Hennessey managed after a while, pouring himself some brandy; James was not allowed a _whiff_ of it. “It’s useless to take them on head-on, and it’s not your job to defend my honour or good name. _I_ am the one who looks after _you_. You have a trick up your sleeve, they have a matching set of sycophants. You have a friend, they have a personal army. The key is to expose them for the prats that they are, without exposing yourself as you do so. Make them _feel_ it. Do you follow?”

Amazingly, the Boy did. He really bloody did!

“And then, one day, your patience shall be rewarded, and you’ll be in a position to put them back in their deserved place.”

He drank some more, wondering if he had said too much. Should James carry this kind of talk outside his cabin… but no. James may not believe him yet, being too young to map out his future for himself, but he was nothing like a braggart or an idle gossip.

“Now go and see about some coffee,” Hennessey grumbled. If his private stores had been loaded at all, which he was beginning to doubt.

Shortly after, he dispatched his charge down to the galley, with the explicit orders to keep quiet and cause not a hint of trouble at least until tomorrow.

Fresh out of the dockyard, HMS _Two Lions_ was no cruiser. Cramped and over-gunned, she had been built for fending off the frog-eaters rather than for high speed and long range. But the mood aboard was tolerably lively because everybody was keeping busy and the danger was not yet imminent.

Before the day was over, the Boy had sort of _turned up_ by Hennessey’s side, soaking up whatever he had to say about his dream frigate or the basics of convoy warfare against so powerful and active an enemy as the Algerines. His spyglass was a delicate, expensive tool, purchased with his first captain’s pay, but after some deliberation, he allowed the Boy to handle it.

“Is ours a strong convoy?” James asked.

“I’ve seen worse,” Hennessey replied evasively.

At sea the escorts took station to windward of their charges. Now that the sun had set, the _Mary Grace_ was running on ahead, leaving him to round up the slow, disobedient, straggling herd from astern.

“This is what a sea officer’s duty _is_ ,” he emphasised. “Nothing terribly glorious about it. You wait, and you keep a weather eye on the horizon. And, above all, a clear head at all times, be it in tedium or in action.”

“Are we going to be attacked soon, what do you reckon?”

Their cruise was relatively uneventful until the Straits of Gibraltar, where a rogue galley thought to snap up a straggler. Being the lighter of the pair, the _Mary Grace_ gave chase, while the _Two Lions_ found herself fighting off the rogue’s mates.

The boarding was a bloody business, it always was. Hennessey lost two lieutenants before taking the fight back to the corsair vessel, sinking under the weight of her Atlantic plunder. As the smoke settled, he stumbled around his own ship, finding no signs of the Boy anywhere at hand. He was too far gone for acute fear, too fatigued, but the dull gnawing in his innards was infinitely worse.

“Over here, Cap’n!” Mr. Janks, the cook, called out.

It turned out that he and his little helper had trussed themselves up an enemy boarder, as black and snarling as the devil himself. James beamed at Hennessey, armed with a monstrous meat cleaver. The cook was as pleased with their capture as a brass ha'penny.

“Well.” Hennessey coughed. “That was very… resourceful of you. However.” He measured James with a stern eye. “You still aren’t allowed to dash off into danger.”

“No dashin’ off intended, Cap’n,” James replied gleefully. “The danger’s come to _us_.”

In hindsight, that must have been the moment when he convinced himself that he would make something of the boy whom he had quite literally caught underfoot.

As the years and postings went by, drawing them apart and bringing them together again, there were more visits to the family’s country house, not to pawn James off on the childless Mrs. This or That - but to teach him elegant manners and horse-riding and other necessary things as he rose through the ranks.

Great men had started with less, and Hennessey had promised to look after him.

 

* * *

 

_1715_

Old age does not begin with gout or other ailments. The weakness of the body can be mastered, given sufficient will. No, it begins with the sinking realisation that you have more to look back at than to look forward to.

Well into his sixties, Hennessey had been an MP, had made his fortune from the prize money, and now sat on the Admiralty Board, safe and secure in his post. Knighthood had eluded him, but then again, he had no children who could pride themselves in being descended from a Sir Alexander.

That poor old pompous bastard.

Times change. They must, or else the world wouldn't be able to move forward. But that constant motion was nigh imperceivable amidst the infernal racket and stink of Newgate, its pitch-black walls echoing with the same curses and prayers and obscenities hanging after hanging.

“I used to wonder how a man could revel in such misery,” said the gentleman who was walking beside Hennessey, the gentleman’s cane tapping against the floor. “Take pride in it instead of rejecting it with every fiber of hisbeing.” He paused, his speech muffled by the vinegar-soaked handkerchief that he had to hold to his nose. “Sadly, experience seems to be the best teacher when it comes to such brutalities. It is not the suffering itself that fills you with the Devil’s own pride, but your capacity to bear it... Forgive me, I do run on.”

They were approaching the cell that had once held none other than Captain Kidd himself: a slave ship’s stench, stone floor, ringbolts, a wooden cot - more of a shelf - no mattress and no linens. Utter, coffin-like isolation.

“In other words, you believe he is past remorse?” Hennessey asked.

“ _No_ one is past remorse, Admiral.” Yes, he knew something of that. “But your solution _is_ rather more mercenary, no matter how you dress it up. So you must weigh your words like… well, you don’t need my similes to guide you.”

It was the best he could do under the circumstances, but how many times had he told himself that already? “Even so, I must put it to him. In private, if I may?”

Leaning on the cane more heavily than a moment ago, the gentleman nodded, wishing him the best of luck.

Luck alone wasn’t going to cut it, Hennessey thought grimly. The damned were singing ballads of Captain Flint - James was more popular here than anywhere else in the world right now.

“You do like to make a splash,” Hennessey said by way of greeting, his entrance announced by the nasty creaking of the hinges. In the following silence, he sank onto the out-of-place visitor’s chair to rest his aching limbs. “Have you nothing to say to me, James?”

His former charge turned his head, evidently surprised at this turn of events. “To what do I owe the honour of so distinguished a visitor?”

James looked ghastly in the candlelight. Hennessey had seen him covered in blood and grime, but the lines on his face were each as if carved with a knife. The same knife that was now being twisted in Hennessey’s own gut.

“Your situation is dire,” he told him. “But not as dire as you imagine.” James let out a clipped, wheezy laugh. “You would be neither the first nor the last pirate to be brought back into the fold.” James’s head jerked up, his irons rattling. “The Spanish treasure fleet. Sailing late and overladen, some of it is _bound_ to wreck. Or vanish in the sea without a trace. You must have had your own designs on that gold.” Hennessey went on above the noise: “Accept a privateering commission, and, with time, you may follow in Henry Morgan’s footsteps. The London salons would never welcome you or Mrs. Hamilton back, but I do believe you could live with that.”

“There’s already been one of Morgan. England doesn’t need two.” James cringed. “Such lengths, just to keep me from overshadowing Kidd.”

“Yes,” Hennessey agreed, “I would not see you set yourself up as the ultimate villain.”

James stared directly at him for the first time. It was... an experience. “Funny. I distinctly remember you being among those who’ve made me into what I am now.”

As much as he would have liked to deny it, James wasn’t wrong on that account. _He_ was the one who had taught James how to fight a war, how to outwit an enemy, and the rest was history.

“Am I on the list?” he wondered. “Is my name next after Alfred Hamilton’s?”

James paused. “You don’t sound particularly grieved.” Not an answer.

“Other men and women aboard that ship were innocent of our crimes. That poor silly woman with him. All those lives you’ve taken, James!”

“Since when are you the champion of the weak and helpless?”

He was anything but. “With that execution, you have started yet _another_ war, between the branches of the family. The hydra has many heads, and all want the same thing.”

“The estate. Always the fucking estate.”

The Earl had hardly been the _sole_ Lord Proprietor, so his death hadn't exactly liberated those accursed islands from his kind. However: “You have also done a considerable service to the Navy.”

That did come as a shock. James settled back into the gloom of the cell, waiting for an explanation. Such exceptional discipline he could show - at all the wrong times, and none when it truly mattered.

“Have you ever spared a thought for what would have happened _after_ Alfred had been allowed to hang you? Who would have been _next_ ? A Puritan witch hunt, and the third of the officers gone, replaced by _his_ puppets. How well do you think the war would have gone then?”

The scope of it was staggering even a decade later. Without ever trying, James could have brought the whole Fleet to their knees.

“I never would have let that happen regardless of the offence. But you, my charge, made into a public scapegoat? It was unthinkable.”

James gritted his teeth, and this non-answer came like a punch.

“Hate me if you will,” Hennessey continued, “but hate me for the right crimes. I could scarcely believe your selfishness, but I did what I did to _protect_ you. I failed, miserably, but not out of any wish to be cruel to you.”

“You know,” James replied in a conversational tone, belied by the veins throbbing on his forehead. “That just makes it a hell lot worse.” And then, before Hennessey could recompose himself, his eyes narrowed. “You. _You_ gave him the idea to throw Thomas into Bethlehem!” Something tore in his voice at saying the name out loud.

“I merely brought it to his attention which one of you was the source of the corruption.” James erupted in a string of curses that would have made a dock worker blush. “He was supposed to be out of that place the moment his father had cooled off, not turn into the fucking Man in the fucking Iron Mask!” Hennessey had barely seen the father and son side by side, and, like everyone else, he had been fooled by the public appearances.

“ _Fuck you,_ ” James spat. The whole cell was charged with the force of his fury, the air crackling. “Fuck England, fuck your Navy and your ignorant German king, but most of all, fuck _you_ for doing the one thing you swore you’d never do - bending over for a foul, arse-faced goblin with a title and a lineage! The sheer nerve of you, sir, facing me now and telling me you did well!”

It cost Hennessey his entire service not to lash out in kind. And it still did not suffice: “Bloody hell, yes! I have saved those who weren’t deluded enough to throw their entire lives away on a dream that rested on the shoulders of a traitor.” James stared at him. “Oh, you haven’t figured it out, have you? Not even when Peter Fucking Ashe started decorating his harbour with your new brethren? He was the one who sold you out!”

The blow was as harsh as it had been uncalled for. Hennessey felt faint, and old. So old. He offered James some water, but the proud son of a bitch wouldn’t accept it.

“Pride, James,” he said quietly, sinking back onto the rickety chair that seemed ready to go to pieces any moment now. “ _Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall_. You persisted on your ruinous course not because you wished to build something, but because you wished to prove the bullying goblin wrong.” He sighed. Was he to blame for that, too? “And you persist still because if you can’t punch the whole world in the face, you’ll damn well keep at it until you’re dead.”

“I have heard you,” James breathed out after a torturous, interminable while. “But the answer is the same.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Hennessey told him, glad to be on his way. “You _have_ proven him wrong. So you would do both yourself _and_ his unfortunate son a disservice by burying the better man under the wreckage.”

At the door, he heard, “Do I get a last wish?”

Never again would he hear James call him a father, but some altered quality of his voice was reminiscent of that. “Yes, and I have taken the liberty of anticipating it.” With that, he made his exit.

His companion, who had been absolutely right, stepped out of the shadow. “I haven’t heard a _word_ of what has just been said.”

God help these two. “The audibility here is terrible indeed.”

Thomas Hamilton was all but jumping up with impatience. “May I see him now?”

“Yes, yes,” Hennessey shoved the keys to the fool before either of them changed his mind. “See him and do what you will with him, he’s all yours.”

Hennessey’s old promise may never stop weighing on his conscience, but Lord knew, his word was still worth something.

 

* * *

 

A storm was raging in James’s soul. He had been brought to England prepared to escape at the first chance or at least make a good last speech. What he had _not_ asked for was a parade of his demons. Old wounds torn open, and for what? Who was Hennessey to lecture him now? The treacherous fuck hadn’t even asked for his forgiveness!

Not that he would ever grant it.

After a brief pause, the door was opened yet again, the footsteps lighter than Hennessey’s.

“What now?” he snarled. He may be bound, but the next jailer he saw was going to-

Time stopped. Or rather,  _ he  _ stopped, rendered incapable of thought. He was seeing a ghost, and that ghost was smiling at him crookedly like after a particularly daring escapade.

“Oh James...” Thomas cupped his cheek, his instincts making him recoil. “Please forgive me for not having come in right away.” Thomas pulled back a little. “But half-decent fathers are, as you know, in short supply, so I wanted you and Hennessey to talk a little  first.”

“You…” James groped around in the dark for his scattered wits. “You died. _I was told you were dead_.”

“Yes, well,” Thomas was fumbling with the keys, “that is what comes of being a Hamilton. You won’t believe some of the attics I’ve seen. Oh, wait, _you_ will.”

Thomas had aged. He had grown gaunt and careworn, his clothing lacklustre. But his eyes were shining so brilliantly and so lucidly that James couldn't but accept what they were telling him. His heart leapt to his throat, and when Thomas tried to help him up, their heads knocked together painfully - neither of them was anything approaching steady on his feet.

“What do you call a landlubber, but on land?”

“Still a landlubber.” James held onto Thomas with both hands, dreading that he was about to disappear. “God, Thomas, stop, I reek!”

“My nose has ceased and desisted right on entering this fine establishment.” He coughed into his handkerchief. “Miranda?”

“In Boston,” James assured him. She _had_ to be. Any other scenario, he could not bear to contemplate right now.

Thomas’s face cleared. “Anyhow, this place ill likes reunions. Let us be away!”

“But how?”

Thomas began towing him along. “You are James McGraw, formerly of the R.N. The Admiral attests to that. The late Captain Hume has captured the wrong man, an easy mistake to make in Nassau, I understand. But since he hasn’t survived the homeward voyage, there is no one to answer for his mistake. You have never made a confession to the contrary, have you?”

Of-fucking-course he hadn’t.

“Well, then, there you have it. You are, for the moment, of no interest to anyone other than myself.” Thomas grinned, showing that he still had his teeth. Not that James had ever counted them. “So you are, for all intents and purposes, a free man - and so am I.” He repeated that with more feeling: “And so am I!”

“Did Hennessey tell you that?” he scoffed. “And you believe him?”

“James.” Thomas fixed him with a grave, sober look. “When someone liberates you from prison, they don’t, generally speaking, intend to put you right back.”

He dug in his heels. “The hell does that mean?” Did Thomas have a weapon on him, besides that fancy cane?

“James, _please_. I don’t trust anyone here overmuch either, if you must know. But that’s no cause to provoke them into realising our worst fears.”

He caught another glimpse of Hennessey, who was looking as impatient as he had been when missing the tide. No men materialised to tackle James down and clap him back in irons. Oddly enough, it was the Admiral’s expression that gave him the necessary push forward.

The light outside nearly blinded him, but he did not get into the carriage until he could see the driver and gauge his threat level.

The Admiral approached the carriage window. “I have said my part.” He shifted his gaze from James to Thomas and back. “And I honestly don’t know which one of you stands a chance of being careful, but do watch yourselves before your ship’s departure.”

“Who said anything about a ship?” Thomas asked innocently.

Hennessey rolled his eyes. “If you agreed to let me dispatch someone after your wife, it would be too much like common sense for your tastes.”

As if Miranda would ever trust some strange men armed with letters that could be forged. And _James_ did not trust Hennessey: if Captain Flint would not bring him the gold, then this was some mad bid for Thomas’s inheritance.

Hennessey waved them off. “Godspeed, gentlemen.” He briefly took off his hat. “Godspeed.”

And just like that, James was out of gaol and the carriage was moving.

“We can’t trust him.” His eyes met Thomas’s. “You do know that, right?”

“When the Admiral found me in my lastest... lodgings,” Thomas winced, “we spoke at length of you and other matters. And he has convinced me that his wish to make amends is sincere.”

Ten years. Ten fucking years of composing letters to Thomas in his head, never once daring to say his name, not even to Miranda. And the moment the miracle of miracles had happened, all that he wanted to do was to give Thomas a good shake.

He closed his eyes wearily. “So where are we off to now?”

The inn was modest, but of the kind where money could buy not sharing the room with strangers. As he washed and shaved, he could smell the sea beckoning them from the docks. Thomas was reading a book - _actually_ reading it - and never once letting James catch him at glancing in his direction.

His love had always been like this. Always so bloody tactful unless he had decided to turn your whole world upside down. Casually, too, almost as an afterthought.

James perched himself on the edge of the bed. “We should talk.”

“You should eat.” Thomas gestured at the food, which had been sitting there untouched for over half an hour. James had had a lot of scrubbing to do. “You must be _ravenous_.”

“Thomas…” He was right in front of James, but the name kept scraping at the inside of his throat like broken glass. “This isn’t picnic baskets of mouldy cheese-”

“Excuse you, it was the noblest cheese in France!”

“We can’t pretend! This isn’t me coming back from the Bahama Islands with bad news! This is _you_ coming back from the dead, and Miranda isn’t even here!” To hold his hand, he realised in dismay.

He needed Miranda to guide him through this - that was how far he had fallen from grace and how much he had forgotten without meaning to.

Thomas scooted closer, touching James’s bare arm. “I do know that, my love. But I haven’t exactly done it before either, this whole resurrection business. Any suggestions are most welcome.” Fucking hell. “Oh, this is lovely!” Thomas’s thumb brushed over the crescent-moon tattoo on his upper arm.

 _Lovely_ was the last word that could ever apply to the man that he had become. Thomas’s fingers moved to tracing and retracing the scars on his front and back. So fucking many scars. And he didn't dare to look at Thomas's, not yet.

He sank to his knees in front of Thomas. _He_ was the one who should be begging for forgiveness. “Forgive me for doing nothing to save you when I had the chance. For bathing your name and your dream in so much blood. For my goddamn pride!” Thomas was the one who had started the fight against the goblin, but James was the one who had lost it. The one who should have bloody well listened to Miranda. “The things I’ve done-” Oh God, _that_ murder.

Thomas knew. He couldn’t _not_ know - Hennessey would not have spared him that terrible burden. And yet, Thomas had come for him, and stayed with him now as if nothing.

He let his forehead rest against Thomas’s bony knee, Thomas’s hand curling over the back of his head without hesitation. “Oh my dear, I asked too much of you.”

James protested against that vehemently.

“Yes, I did. I was a damned fool, and equally selfish.” Thomas kept stroking James’s damp hair. “I _knew_ how terrible you could be. We may not have had much time, but I’ve _seen_ you, James. All of you, the beauty and the terror.” In Thomas’s clear blue eyes, he could glimpse nothing but honesty and a burning determination to set things to rights. “And I told you not to be ashamed. So if you must condemn someone in this room, condemn the pair of us together. And for God’s sake, stop kneeling on the floor!”

James had to chuckle at the conclusion, wiping his cheeks with his sea-rough knuckles. He climbed back into bed with Thomas, and they lay down facing each other, separated only by their joined hands. Thomas smelt of some strange perfume, and imagining him carefully picking the clothing for the prison break like for an assembly went a long way towards reviving James's spirits. Some things never changed.

‘I thought I’d lost you forever,’ he almost blurted out. He would have _gone on_ thinking that until it became true.

How could he not be filled with shame?

Thomas gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m here _now_ , beloved. And I’m not leaving you _ever_ again.”

“Knowing what you do now,” he persisted, “aren’t you sorry you’ve ever met and encouraged me?”

Thomas leaned in to kiss his frown away. “I have been playacting a harmless lunatic far too long... for some of it not to have stuck.“ James flinched. “But if both of us are to find ourselves again, I would not ask for more than you and Miranda by my side. You’ll just have to accept that - but anyhow, tell me more about her things!”

In the ever-moving, ever-shifting world, how could _any_ promises ever be kept?

But still, he'd be damned if he didn't give it his all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The year 1680 is very provisional, since I have no idea what James's exact age is :) The quote is from the Bible, KJV.
> 
> ETA (28-07-2016): After checking the episode credits (belatedly), I discovered that the woman who is on the _Maria Aleyne_ with the Douche is credited as 'Young Mistress'. Knowing him, he could easily have taken a random new mistress along to the Carolinas (the camera lingers on her diamonds - boy, did they cost her). That's whom Flint killed. 
> 
> My headcanon is, he remarried, needing new heir material, so he left a wife and a new son behind in England (which explains Richard Guthrie's mention of Thomas being the eldest).


	2. The Man in the Iron Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The missing scene between Hennessey and Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrow heavily from the Blanketverse so as not to reinvent more OCs or bicycles. Archibald Hamilton is (loosely) based on the historical dude and the headcanon that he and the Awful Dad are brothers. The fake Mrs. Henry Avery really happened, between 1707 and 1709 (Tim Travers's _Pirates_ has more :)).

Hennessey had seen many things in his time, and, objectively speaking, Bethlem Royal Hospital was not the worst of them by far, but he would take the gilded facades he knew over this one any day. His interview with Dr. Hale had been an exercise in solving an incomplete Bologna University puzzle, for all that the man himself wasn’t half the fiend that he could have been. Yes, his predecessor had treated a ‘Thomas Hamilton’ for severe melancholy for roughly a year and a half. Yes, a terrible tragedy. Yes, here is the grave, and now, if you excuse me...

A former heir apparent, buried in a hospital’s cemetery - no flowers, no statues, no lofty inscriptions, the name plate, indistinguishable from a beggar’s, already going to rust. Between the two Hamiltons, it was hard to say which had got the worst deal; to Hennessey, the sea seemed more welcoming than a former vegetable plot. If the Earl had indeed ordered the boy killed behind the scenes, then it had been a veritable Medici assassination.

A dead end, then.

“‘scuse me,” a voice croaked behind him just as the early chills of autumn grew impossible to ignore. “Lord Admiral? Sir?”

He suppressed a grimace of pain. “Yes?”

“My name is Farnham, John Farnham, sir.” The old man - well, they were all old men here - was squashing a worn-looking sailor’s hat between his hands, his face calling for a geological surveyor rather than a physiognomist. “Before I was a cook in Bedlam, I served in His Majesty’s ships and East and West Indiamen-”

In short, Hennessey might as well be the _only_ admiral under whom Mr. Farnham _hadn’t_ served at some point in his colourful life. Even taken with a pound of salt, such an impressive record merited a coin or two.

The old man dropped his hat, mortified, and Hennessey cursed inwardly, sorry to have misjudged him.

“I’ve got something to tell you, sir,” Mr. Farnham whispered. “ _Sub_ rose and quiet-like.” Never a good sign. “It’s about Lord Thomas.”

“Good God, man, you should’ve said so from the start!”

“There’s an inn-”

“Damn your inn! Before the day is over, you will have changed your mind twice over.” Or worse, the wrong people would have found out about their exchange. “My rogue of a footman will fetch us a drink.”

In his mind, they were in his carriage already, deep in conversation. Reality would have him struggle to put one foot after the other, which at least provided a convenient, if not too convincing excuse for the cook to assist him, through another exit.

Fortunately, now that they weren’t on the subject of Mr. Farnham’s seagoing adventures, he became a plain speaker, economic with words. He said less of Lord Thomas’s first year in the hospital and more of how he had volunteered for kitchen work, as incredible as that sounded.

A smile came into the cook’s half-shut eyes as he said, “He was such sweet, kind-hearted fellow, too.”

Hennessey kept his thoughts to himself. “Is that where he was when… the tragedy struck?”

“Patience, my lord!”

All the while, Thomas never stopped planning his escape. Hennessey couldn’t help a soft chuckle at the sheer audacity - and ingenuity - of hostaging the East India Company’s pepper. Dr. Tyson’s health had already been on the decline and what with the Earl being holed up in the countryside, the stars appeared to have finally aligned for the errant son.

Hennessey frowned. “So what went wrong, then? How did he die?”

“You’ve nailed it on the head, sir!” Farnham winked at him. “He ain’t dead! Leastways, he wasn’t when he left here.”

Hennessey swallowed heavily, needing a moment to steady himself. This was either brilliant news or terrible news, no middle ground.

“I ask nothing in return,” Farnham concluded on a more subdued note, anticipating his question. “But one final voyage in the service, if you could be so kind.”

One final voyage indeed. “Granted, my good man.”

He had seen many ways to meet death, and a good man should always be allowed to do it on his own terms.

 

* * *

 

If Hennessey had expected his search to pick up from thereon after, he would have been in for a serious blow. Lord Thomas’s only accomplice in the scheme, a Lady Ramsden, had fled to Paris and her trail had long since gone cold. He was running out of time - the Trial could not be delayed forever. And he couldn’t press Bethlem’s Physician any further because the whole affair had never been the latter’s problem in the first place.

Just one door remained open to him, in a very loose sense of the word, and nothing short of his self-imposed mission would have made him walk through it.

After a proper and respectable period of seclusion, Lady Mary Hamilton had become one of the most promising young widows in London. Not yet in her thirties, she had a fortune, secured by means of Alfred Jr., rich houses, both in the capital and in the country, and astonishingly few enemies. He was fully prepared to be turned into stone.

And yet, she managed to dash his expectations. For one, she was perfectly civil, her hospitality well-candlelit heedless of the tax and her calm, placid demeanor accentuated by a troop of Tory beauty patches. And for another, she was genuinely fond of her boy, allowing him to play with his dog in the same room with them.

Hennessey tried to find a visible trace of the Earl in the child, but could not - the Junior was a spitting image of his mother.

A note of candour finally entered her voice: “I don’t know what to say to you.” She unfolded her French fan, using it to convey her emotion. “That I married an old snake?” Hennessey might have choked on his tea. “You wouldn’t sit here and judge me if... you had no urgent business up your sleeve. So, which skeletons are we airing out today?”

In his experience, when a woman of her station chose to speak bluntly, it was usually a trap. But the longer he played this game, the more he did not care to tie himself into knots thinking his way around petty intrigue.

So he said: “His eldest son. Where is he?”

Her pause betrayed her even before she asked: “Beg your pardon?”

“Thomas Hamilton,” he repeated. “ _Where_ is he?”

Her fan snapping shut, she rose to her feet and rang the bell for the governess. Soon, the child would be sent away to Eton, to be return a man. Time was such a strange, pitiless thing. As soon as the room had been cleared, the woman moved over to the window, looking at the rain-misted glass. Hennessey did not join her there, and she remembered herself, going back to her faux Versailles sofa.

“I admit, when Alfred was killed, his first son was the last thing on my mind,” she said at length. “I had no reason to disbelieve the official story. But then I learnt - through my own sources, which are of no relevance right now - that there was some stirring on Archibald’s side of the things. This was before his appointment, you understand. So I was forced to face the fact that _my_ boy’s future may not be as secure as I thought.”

Hennessey said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

Her teaspoon struck the cup as it were a gong. “Archibald loves money as much as the next Hamilton, if not more. But the thing is, his affections are never quite returned.” Wonder why. “So we talked, we had a bit of a family squabble, we reached an understanding.”

“What sort of an understanding?”

“I kept my share of the estate and ransomed Thomas from him, and he fucked off to Jamaica, pardon my language.”

Hennessey stared at her, taken aback. “But… why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As no man’s heir, he is of no further interest to Archibald, and faced with a choice between a private madhouse and the streets, he chose a third option.”

But surely Alfred had struck Thomas off his will as soon as the boy had been institutionalised? Or had the will been stolen or tampered with?

These fucking Hamiltons would be the death of him, Hennessey thought grimly.

“Is he lucid at all? The boy.”

She opened the fan again. “He lives in his own world. The news did shake him badly.” Noticing Hennessey’s skepticism, she elaborated: “The news of his wife’s death. I have never met her myself, but I do feel sorry for both of them.”

 

Hennessey’s fingers twitched, giving razor stabs of pain. He couldn’t even tell if she was still being honest with him, or if this was an act.

 

One last try: “How did he learn of her passing?”

“From Archibald.” She paused. “He had a death certificate from… Antigua or Barbados, if memory serves. Those tropical fevers are the scourge of the entire West Indies.”

Well, Hennessey couldn’t bloody well bring a delusional lunatic into Newgate - it would only make James lose the last traces of humanity.

That is if Lady Mary’s account was to be trusted. “I wish to speak to him in private. Can that be arranged?”

She frowned. “Why?”

“One word: Nassau.”

“Oh, for the love of God! Hasn’t it done _enough_? Archibald has nearly turned the poor man’s head all over again with those petitions from some swindling pirates’ wives! He has allowed him to meet - wait for it - a Mrs. Henry Avery! Mark my words, Thomas will have _no_ more part of that circus for as long as he is in my custody.”

Mrs. Henry Avery had been a major embarrassment, Hennessey would grant Lady Mary that. As to the rest, “I have only one question to ask him, that is all.”

She fanned herself aggressively. “What question? After all this time?”

“I did believe him dead, and I will thank you not to inquire after my sources either.”

She pursed her lips. “Thomas Hamilton is dead. You do understand that, don’t you? Whatever remains is a harmless shell of the man he once was. He is no threat to anyone.”

But if Hennessey were to offer to take him off her hands, he was certain that she _would_ lose the last of her composure. “Then one short visit shouldn’t threaten you.”

She studied Hennessey for a drawn-out moment. “The only time the late Earl bothered to mention you, he called you a coward. Among other things. I like cowards - you can always be relied upon not to do anything reckless.”

 

* * *

 

The Man in the Iron Mask had spent his final days rotting in prison. Thomas Hamilton had been carted off from place to place, including ‘a nice little cottage on the grounds’, where the country doctor had cared for him, but now, the woman had grown so bold as to smuggle him into _London_.

After Hennessey’s streak bad luck, he was just a knock on the door away from his goal. No more mad tricks or unreliable messengers, just one short visit.

He almost turned back and left.

The mistress of the house was distracted by its affairs, so a maid let him in, her confident movements telling him that in the very least, the boy hadn’t grown violent in his confinement.

He was sitting at the writing desk, dressed in a nightgown despite the hour, a candle burning and his quill making scratching noises against the paper.

Hennessey cleared his throat. “You may not recognise me,” he said, unsure how to address the boy. “My name is Hennessey.”

The quill’s progress halted.

“There are many things I should say to you.” He paused, lowering himself into a chair. “But not even nearly enough time. So to begin with, I’d like you to read something that will reveal my intentions to you better than any empty claims.”

He held out a letter that he had removed from Hume’s papers - and just in time, too.

Thomas did not move.

“Very well.” He read: “ _To the honorable Justice Addington Thomas, Massachusetts Bay colony. I petition you under the advisement of your friend Mr. Richard Guthrie, to bestow your favor and influence._ _You may know Captain James Flint by reputation through stories of his past misdeeds, but you might not know of his desire to repent.”_

“Stop,” Thomas breathed out.

“ _He is a good man, a decent man, eager to renounce his transgressions at sea and seek life in a part of the world willing to accept a man humbled and penitent. Were such a thing possible, would such a place exist? It is with this very hope that I write you today._ ”

Thomas rose to his feet, a little unsteadily. Instead of marching over to Hennessey, he tiptoed over to the door, listening with his finger held to his lips.

Hennessey mentally kicked himself.

“Claudine?” Thomas called out. There was a movement on the other side, then a subtle rapping noise. “Dear God, a _whole_ candle?” For that price, the boy got to dictate her exactly what she had heard here.

“French servants?” Hennessey asked.

“Huguenots, and you might have noticed the Africans, too.” Thomas folded his arms across his chest. “Easier to control.” Gingerly, he raised the letter to his eyes. “I do not recognise the handwriting.”

“Regretfully, it is but a copy. Pray read on.”

_I've enclosed a bill of exchange for £500 to be spent at your discretion toward procuring whatever permissions necessary._

_I only urge speed._

_He is caught in a dangerous plot with wicked men who will most certainly kill him when they learn of his betrayal._

_Believe me, your obliged and faithful servant,_

_Miranda Barlow._

Thomas stood rooted to the spot, staring at Hennessey.

“This was written a couple of months ago,” he said. “If there _is_ still life in you, if your spirit hasn’t been crushed by your goddamn family, you must help me now, because by God, they need you.”

Thomas closed his eyes for a moment, his hands shaking. But when he opened them, the look that he gave Hennessey was glacial. “I have been lied to so many times. Why should I believe you?”

“Do you believe that your wife is alive?”

Thomas checked the door again, finding nobody there this time. “... yes.”

“Do you believe that James is alive and has turned pirate?”

“Yes.”

And the most difficult question of all: “Do you still believe in pardoning those who seek a different life?”

No answer.

“Do believe that he deserves to hang for his crime, starting with the murder of your father?”

Thomas strode over to Hennessey, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Baiting a known lunatic. What _are_ you playing at, Admiral?”

Hennessey held his gaze, though not without some difficulty. Had this all been another terrible mistake? Was a petition from Miranda ‘Barlow’ not enough to persuade her husband?

“Nothing. I wish to make that letter true. I wish to save the man I once loved as a son.”

Thomas made a noise that he could not decipher. “Then you, too, have lost your mind.” Hennessey's heart sank. “An hour after midnight… what does your carriage look like?” Hennessey told him without hesitation, and Thomas described a spot where to park it. “I will keep this, and if you’re not there, I shall feel at liberty to visit Newgate _myself_.”

Well, he thought ruefully, that answered the question about the boy’s spirit.

 

* * *

 

Relying on Lord Thomas for stealth was rather like… asking James to be civil in a tavern. More or less. Hennessey was fully prepared to spend a happy night with his gout and decrepitude and siege plans, what the gout had started, Thomas’s sheepish smile very nearly finished. It had begun to rain and, naturally, he was soaked through like he had fallen off a Thames ferry.

This one and the Boy truly deserved each other.

“I _am_ sorry,” said the rascal. “I may or may not have… overslept.”

Lord have mercy and all that. “You’d better get somewhere warm before you catch your death.” Hennessey tossed a flask at him. “This was hot, before you may or may not have overslept.”

“Thank you kindly.”

If Thomas’s penitent teeth-chatters mollified Hennessey somewhat, he did not let it show.

At the inn, Hennessey paid extra for privacy and Thomas cocooned himself in blankets. “I used to have one just like these.” He had not packed anything much from his room, his waterproofed duffle bag filled with years’ worth of writing and little else. “Before… before my uncle’s agents found me. It’s a long story. Now… will you tell me why I am _really_ here?”

Hennessey looked at him impassively. “To save James.”

“In my experience,” the boy said carefully. “People do not risk incurring Lady Ashbourne’s wrath over ancient history, no matter how shameful.”

Damn it. “I wish you to - and the irony is not lost on me, I assure you - come with me and talk some sense into him.”

“And your current idea of sense is…?”

James’s last real chance at getting out of prison was agreeing to fetch that Spanish gold for the Admiralty in a way that would not implicate the Sea Lords directly. It could be done, given enough discretion from everyone.

“‘Discretion,’” Thomas repeated. “Who else knows about this? Who else has read Miranda’s letter?” His voice trembled around his wife’s name.

Hennessey had neither time nor inclination to coddle Thomas. But the thing was, he had not needed to. “I have done you a great wrong…”

Thomas raised his hand, his mouth a taut line. “We were discussing _James_ , I believe. But if you insist, I will hear your confession.” Hennessey glared at him. “The Admiralty is always pressed for funds, but are you truly so desperate as to embark on such a risky enterprise?”

“He was like a son to me,” Hennessey repeated stubbornly.

Thomas gave a little shrug. “Son today, a lunatic tomorrow. We both know how this works.”

“ _You_ ruined him!” Hennessey snapped at him. “ _You_ made him forget everything I had ever taught him about caution and prudence. He threw his whole life away for you! You, sir, are responsible for what he has become as much as I am, and now you are the only one who can ask him to-”

“-submit quietly?” Thomas asked mockingly. “I applaud your newfound perceptiveness, but why on earth would I do that? Why would I so abuse my perceived power over him?”

Hennessey clutched at his chest, trying to revive himself with the usual sailors’ medicine.

“Oh, you poor man,” Thomas continued, his tone softening. “You have no sons, no grandsons, no family at all, do you? And you still place the service before all, no matter what it has done this to you.”

“I will thank you to stop right there.” He would _not_ be committing treason. He was just cleaning up an old mess. “One way or another, Captain Flint _will_ die in that cell.”

“You would do that?”

“To spare him the humiliation? Yes.”

“Or spare yourself and the rest of London his dying curse?”

There was that too. People rallied behind dead men. Avery, Kidd… He would _not_ add ‘Flint’ to that list. “I had lost my last scrap of nobility years ago, if I ever had.”

“Admiral.” Hennessey turned back to Thomas. “I will give you an opportunity to offer him your commission. Just you and him, no intermediaries. And if that fails, you will let _James McGraw_ go because he has done nothing wrong since 1710, and myself alongside him. Any witnesses will be your problem.” He got up, scattering blankets behind him. “Do we have a deal?”

Hennessey looked at Thomas’s extended hand, then back up at his face. It was simple, it was elegant, and it spelt his ruin.

“Yes,” he replied, shaking that hand. “We have a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: the actual customs of those times concerning suicides frankly made me sick, so I didn't go there :(

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are muchly appreciated <3


End file.
